For a second straight day, White House press secretary Jay Carney faced questions about a Monday afternoon event that occurred as the situation at the Navy Yard was still unfolding. Obama touched on the tragedy beforeforcefully criticizing conservative Republicans who are threatening to shut down the government.

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Witnesses recount the Navy Yard shooting

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Photos: Navy Yard shooting victims 11 photos

Photos: Navy Yard shooting victims11 photos

Navy Yard shooting victims – Twelve people were killed in a shooting rampage at the Washington Navy Yard on September 16. Here are photos of some of the victims: Vishnu Bhalchandra Pandit, 61, of North Potomac, Maryland.

Obama leads country through grief – President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama arrive for a memorial service in Fort Hood, Texas, on Wednesday, April 9. Officials say Army Spc. Ivan Lopez took a .45-caliber handgun onto the military post last week, killing three people and injuring 16 before taking his own life.

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Obama leads country through grief10 photos

Obama leads country through grief – Obama pauses as he speaks in September about the shooting at the Washington Navy Yard, mourning what he called "yet another mass shooting" in the United States that he says took the life of American patriots.

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Obama leads country through grief10 photos

Obama leads country through grief – Obama tours a tornado-affected area in Moore, Oklahoma, in May. A tornado that ripped through Moore hit 2,400 homes on a 17-mile path.

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Obama leads country through grief10 photos

Obama leads country through grief – Obama speaks at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross following the Boston Marathon bombings that killed three people and injured at least 264 last April. Suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed during an encounter with police, and his brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, pleaded not guilty and is currently awaiting trial.

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Obama leads country through grief10 photos

Obama leads country through grief – Obama attends a memorial service at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, in April 2013. Fourteen people, nearly all first responders, died in an explosion at the West Fertilizer Co.

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Obama leads country through grief10 photos

Obama leads country through grief – On December 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza walked into the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and killed 20 children and six adults. At the memorial service, Obama said, "In the coming weeks, I will use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens -- from law enforcement to mental health professionals to parents and educators -- in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this."

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Obama leads country through grief – Obama speaks on the campus of Missouri Southern State University after a tornado ripped through Joplin, Missouri, in May 2011, killing 158 people.

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Obama leads country through grief10 photos

Obama leads country through grief – The president and first lady hold hands during a memorial service for the victims of a Tucson, Arizona, shooting. On January 8, 2011, Jared Lee Loughner shot six people and wounded 13 more, including then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

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Obama leads country through grief10 photos

Obama leads country through grief – An explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia killed 29 workers in April 2010. It was the worst U.S. mine disaster in 40 years. "All the hard work; all the hardship; all the time spent underground; it was all for their families. ... It was all in the hopes of something better," Obama said about the fallen workers.

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Obama leads country through grief – Thirteen people were shot and killed by Maj. Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood in November 2009. Speaking to an estimated 15,000 people at a memorial service, Obama called the act "incomprehensible" and vowed that justice would be done.

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Photos: Worst mass shootings in U.S. 14 photos

Photos: Worst mass shootings in U.S.14 photos

Police officers walk on a rooftop at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday, September 16, 2013, after a shooting rampage in the nation's capital. At least 12 people and suspect Aaron Alexis were killed, according to authorities.

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Photos: Worst mass shootings in U.S.14 photos

Connecticut State Police evacuate children from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012. Adam Lanza opened fire in the school, killing 20 children and six adults before killing himself. Police say he also shot and killed his mother in her Newtown home.

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Photos: Worst mass shootings in U.S.14 photos

James Holmes pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to opening fire July 20, 2012, at the Century Aurora 16 theater in Aurora, Colorado, during the midnight premiere of "The Dark Knight Rises." Twelve people were killed and dozens were wounded. Holmes is charged with 142 counts, including first-degree murder. His trial is scheduled to begin in February 2014.

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Photos: Worst mass shootings in U.S.14 photos

A military jury convicted Army Maj. Nidal Hasan on Friday, August 23, 2013, of 13 counts of premeditated murder in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas. During the November 5, 2009 shooting, 13 people died and 32 were injured.

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Photos: Worst mass shootings in U.S.14 photos

Jiverly Wong shot and killed 13 people at the American Civic Association in Binghamton, New York, before turning the gun on himself on April 3, 2009, police say. Four other people were injured at the immigration center shooting. Wong had been taking English classes at the center.

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Photos: Worst mass shootings in U.S.14 photos

Pallbearers carry a casket of one of Michael McLendon's 10 victims. McLendon shot and killed his mother in her Kingston, Alabama, home, before shooting his aunt, uncle, grandparents and five more people. He shot and killed himself in Samson, Alabama, on March 10, 2009. McClendon left a note saying he put his mother "out of her misery."

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Photos: Worst mass shootings in U.S.14 photos

Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho went on a shooting spree on the campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, on April 16, 2007. Cho killed two people at the West Ambler Johnston dormitory and, after chaining the doors closed, killed another 30 at Norris Hall, home to the Engineering Science and Mechanics Department. He wounded 17 people before killing himself. It is the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history.

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Photos: Worst mass shootings in U.S.14 photos

Mark Barton walked into two Atlanta trading firms on July 29, 1999, and fired shots, leaving nine dead and 13 wounded, police say. Hours later police found Barton at a gas station in Acworth, Georgia, where he pulled a gun and killed himself. The day before Barton had bludgeoned his wife and his two children in their Stockbridge, Georgia, apartment, police say. The children's birth mother and grandmother had been murdered six years earlier in Alabama. Barton was questioned but never charged in that crime.

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Eric Harris, left, and Dylan Klebold entered Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, on April 20, 1999, armed with bombs and guns. The students killed 13 and wounded 23 before killing themselves.

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George Hennard crashed his pickup through the plate glass window of Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, on October 16, 1991, before fatally shooting 23 people and committing suicide.

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Photos: Worst mass shootings in U.S.14 photos

James Huberty shot and killed 21 people, including children, at a McDonald's in San Ysidro, California, on July 18, 1984. A police sharpshooter killed Huberty an hour after the rampage began.

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Photos: Worst mass shootings in U.S.14 photos

Prison guard George Banks is led through the Luzerne County courthouse in 1985. Banks killed 13 people, including five of his children, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on September 25, 1982. He was sentenced to death in 1993 and received a stay of execution in 2004. His death sentence was overturned in 2010.

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Photos: Worst mass shootings in U.S.14 photos

Officers carry victims across the University of Texas at Austin campus after Charles Joseph Whitman opened fire from the school's tower, killing 16 people and wounding 30. Police officers shot and killed Whitman, who had killed his mother and wife earlier in the day.

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Photos: Worst mass shootings in U.S.14 photos

Howard Unruh, a World War II veteran, shot and killed 13 of his neighbors on September 5, 1949, In Camden, New Jersey. Unruh barricaded himself in his house after the shooting. Police overpowered him the next day. He was ruled criminally insane and committed to a state mental institution.

"I understand that some Republicans are trying to make something of this," Carney said on Tuesday in response to a question from CNN Senior White House Correspondent Jim Acosta.

"The president spoke about the Navy Yard at the very top of his briefing. He talked about the cowardly act that had taken place, the tragedy that was unfolding and the loss of life and he called for and demanded a seamless investigation with federal and local law enforcement officials and that is what we're seeing now," Carney said.

Obama himself stepped in on Tuesday to address the controversy, telling Telemundo in an interview to "keep in mind" that he addressed the shooting while it was still going on, "while we were still gathering information."

He continued, "I think that everybody understands that the minute something like this happens, I'm in touch with the FBI, I'm in touch with my national security team, we're making sure that all the assets are out there for us to deal with this as well as we can."

On the other hand, Obama said, "what is also important to remember is that Congress has a lot of work to do right now" in a short period of time, noting looming fiscal deadlines that he says are crucial for the economy.

Obama had planned on Tuesday to tout his economic accomplishments on the fifth anniversary of the Wall Street meltdown and criticize a group of conservative Republicans for their push to shut down the federal government if the national health care law isn't defunded.

His comments were designed as a prelude to the White House battle plan in the fights over the upcoming deadlines over government funding, the debt ceiling, and as a Americans begin to start enrolling in the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.

White House officials did delay the event from late morning to early afternoon, to ensure that the president wouldn't be speaking at the same time at a news conference updating the evolving situation at the Navy Yard. But they said they never considered canceling the event.

"We are confronting another mass shooting and it happened on a military installation in our nation's capital. It's a shooting that targeted our military and civilian personnel," the president said at the top of his remarks. "These are men and women who were going to work, doing their jobs protecting all of us. They're patriots and they know the dangers of serving abroad but today they face the unimaginable violence that they wouldn't have expected here at home."

But minutes later Obama took the fight to some in the GOP, saying, "I cannot remember a time when one faction of one party promises economic chaos if it can't get 100% of what it wants. That's never happened before but that's what's happening right now," and adding that forcing a shutdown would be the "height of irresponsibility."

The president's quick pivot first to the latest developments in the Syrian crisis and then into his criticism of the GOP stands in contrast to his initial reaction to last December's shooting of 20 children and six adults in Newtown, Connecticut, when he urged national unity.

And it brought criticism from House Speaker John Boehner.

"It's a shame that the president could not manage to rise above partisanship today," the top Republican in Congress said in a statement a few hours after Obama's event.

Former House Speaker and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich expanded on the criticism.

"President Reagan, in the tragedy of the (space shuttle) Challenger, postponed the State of the Union address because he realized the country needed to be in mourning. President Obama should have recognized that an event this painful and tragic, in the nation's capital, required being president rather than partisan, and being concerned about people rather than concerned about attacking," said Gingrich, a co-host of CNN's "Crossfire."

A top Republican strategist went a step farther.

"When there is a tragic event like this in the nation's capital and the local baseball team expresses that it would be insensitive to participate in the national pastime, but the president proceeds with a self-congratulatory press conference to celebrate his miniscule economic accomplishments, it tells you the Obama administration has become tone-deaf," said Alex Castellanos, a CNN contributor who co-founded Purple Strategies, a bipartisan public affairs firm. "Bill Clinton, who 'felt our pain,' would never have made this mistake."

It's not just Republicans who are critical of the president -- a senior Democratic consultant was critical of Obama's timing, too.

"Suprisingly tone-deaf. National unity has been at the heart of the Obama brand since his 2004 'there are no red states and no blue states' speech. To pass up a chance to unite the country after a tragedy was a missed opportunity. Unhelpful in terms of politics. Even more unhelpful in terms of governance," said the consultant, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely.

While Carney says the president "was horrified by this news" (of the shootings), he defended Monday's White House event and wouldn't entertain any second day quarterbacking, saying "we knew what the public knew," adding "we had the same information you did."

And he pushed back against criticism that Obama's speech was partisan.

"Far from being a partisan speech, the president made clear in his speech that many Republicans on Capitol Hill agree with him that we should not go down the road of threatening to shut down the government or defaulting on our obligations in the name of some partisan agenda item," Carney said.

And White House officials questioned the appropriateness of some House Republicans who they say were launching partisan attacks at the administration on Monday over last September's deadly attack at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that left the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans dead.

Later Monday, the tone did appear to shift at the White House.

A Latin music event in the East Room that was planned for the evening was postponed, according to White House officials, "in light of today's tragic events at the Washington Navy Yard and out of respect for the victims and their families."

Around the same time, the U.S. flag on top of the White House was lowered to half staff.

Months after apologizing for overeager users fingering innocent people as potential suspects in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, Reddit shut down a section devoted to chasing down the Washington Navy Yard shooter.